Eclipse is an ongoing project in support of an open source integrated development environment (IDE). Eclipse provides a framework and a basic platform (called the Eclipse Platform) that allows a company to build an integrated development environment from plug-in software components provided by Eclipse members. Eclipse members include Hewlett Packard, IBM, and many other companies. A member company must offer an Eclipse plug-in product within a year of joining.
A major advantage to an open source development platform is that an enterprise can mix and match Eclipse-conforming products rather than being committed to a single vendor's suite of development products. Although the Eclipse Platform is written in Java, it supports plug-ins that allow developers to develop and test code written in other languages. The Eclipse architectural framework supports plug-ins for Java development tools, C and C++ development tools, test and performance tools, Web tools, business intelligence and reporting, modeling and graphical frameworks, project models, runtime and update capabilities, and user interface building.
The Eclipse Framework is composed of plug-ins, fragments and features (let's call them bundles in general for simplicity). Plug-ins introduce functionality to the framework. Fragments internationalize plug-ins by providing translations for the externalized strings of plug-ins in order for their functionality to be seen and used in different languages. Features componentize plug-ins and fragments by grouping them together in order to be installed, uninstalled, enabled and disabled as groups instead of individuals. Unfortunately, plug-ins and fragments very often have “issues”, such as being missing, being unresolved, etc. Currently no approach provides a way to resolve such issues in Eclipse or other similar products. In view of the foregoing, there exists a need for a solution that solves at least one of these deficiencies.